Language and expression in oral history
Maryam Rajabi
Translated by: M. B. Khoshnevisan
2019-04-23
According to the website of Iranian Oral History, the third session of the meeting " Live History: A Study of 40 Years of Oral History of the Islamic Revolution and the Holy Defense" was held in the Qasr-e Shirin Hall of the Islamic Revolution Museum and Holy Defense on Tuesday 19th of February 2019 attended by Gholamreza Azizi and Faezeh Tavakoli.
A text which is closer to scientific language
Mustafa Niknam was the meeting’s host and started the session with questions regarding the prose of oral history. In response, Gholamreza Azizi, the Head of the Research Center of the National Library and Archives of Islamic Republic of Iran said, “I think that one or two issues have been mixed together in your questions. The issue is whether oral history is a history or literature? Your second discussion is not that of text, it is the discussion of language and how to express it. In the first part, I should say that oral history is not literature. Literature has its own character and form. In literature, you use your own special methods depending on the text you produce. As the boundaries of literature and history approach, it is for example historical novels with which we deal. In a historical novel, its form and shape is literature, but it has set a topic in history as the source of writing the novel. In a historical novel, the individuals and characters are not made by the writer’s mind or what he or she has seen in daily life and inspired from them, but it has capitalized an event which has happened in one part of the history and formed it with literary techniques, has added ups and downs and hero and anti-hero for it, and even sometimes, it has trespassed ahistorical event and crossed it, because the intention of the person who is writing a historical novel, is not to write history but to write a novel, and if a novel is supposed to have a boring story of explaining a war with a literal language, it will certainly lose the audience. Thus, our first discussion is language and the other one is expression.
Expression is like a historical novel and it seems that we have no difference of opinion in the discussion of language. If we are supposed to write a literary work even with a text about the superiority of science over wealth, each of us may use a different language, someone with satire language and the other with a serious one. Or the one who is stronger than us literally, can use old, strong and sophisticated vocabulary and produces an excellent text. We even have pure historical books which have been written with prose poem. It is prose but harmonious. It is prose but difficult to read. It is prose but all literary techniques which can make the text excellent in a period have been used. On the contrary, in another period, you have a historical text which has been written in a very simple language which everybody understands it and has not used obsolete and forgotten verbs and difficult-to-understand and less applied vocabulary, but both have written the history. For instance, someone is going to produce an oral history text which is closer to a scientific language. When we say “closer to a scientific language”, it means that he or she does not seek literary techniques and to add harmony. Now, the reading of Dorreh Naderi or Mojmalol Tavarikh is hard for someone who has a diploma and he or she does not understand anything and should certainly have a guide. We have many such historical texts in our books. In my opinion, it makes no difference with what language I speak, with a simple and accessible language and the language in which artifact and harmonious prose and prose poem are used less. If you have produced a text or an interview for oral history and your interviewee speaks excellently, for instance if you talk to Mr. Kazazi, his language is another one and if you want to produce his text, it will be different. He has his own language, vocabulary and special expression. But there is also another way that I want to borrow the way of expression and literature and mix my history with literature. As I said, this happens in historical novels. In each of them, if you want to use from another one, it will have harms inevitably and will inflict damages inevitably.
In historical novels, you sacrifice the history, because you are forced to enter some things in the story and pull out some others from the text of history. You have to exaggerate in expressing something. In every historical TV series, a number of historians have protested against the content. To me, since an artistic text is produced, they have to sacrifice part of the history for their art, way of playing, language and expression of play, attraction of the audience and so on. In the historical texts which are produced in literary language, I have seen several cases that if we want to use literary language very much and apply nice Farsi techniques for developing our word, we will harm the text and transfer of concept in some places. Equivocal, mysterious and multi-conceptual sentences are included for the beauty of expression. It does not harm the history, because they want to make the language nice. If you read, you will understand something and if I read, I will understand something else and we move away with the same impression of that event.”
A challenge in these years
In continuation of the meeting, Faezeh Tavakoli, the Secretary of the Oral History Group Work of Iranian Association of History and the author of the book “Oral History: The Theoretical and Methodological Discussions (Principles)” said, “My scientific experiences have been in a way that I have concluded that we should recognize and carry out the theoretical and methodological discussions of oral history correctly so that our research will be documented and correct. The viewpoint of my professors in the universities such as Dr. Nouraee, Dr. Azizi and other professors is that historical texts should be in the form of questions and answers since they have an abstract and formal state, and this subject has been challenged by the book released recently; the book “Voices from Chernobyl” which is among the latest oral history books. The book won the Nobel Prize of Literature in 2015 and has been written by a Russian person named Svetlana Alexievich. He has depicted the incident of Chernobyl which is the explosion of the nuclear reactor in Ukraine from the language those who have survived. The book’s winning of Nobel Prize has challenged the area of oral history in the discussion that we face with it as a very formal text namely questions and answers. The author has brought the memoirs registered form the individuals in the form of these questions and answers and it has been written in the beginning of the whole chapters that the “monologues” and the quoted narrations are very impressive. Those who have survived in the incident, but suffered from many defects, have spoken after many years and explained a lot of things, even, the animals, soil, water and the environment were infected there. These are under the title “Voices from Chernobyl”. I have even looked at the English text of the book and saw that the phrase “oral history” has been used, and it was not just that he cited as “Voices from Chernobyl”.
Thus, the field of oral history has not been invented by us. Way of expression and the literature used by martyr Avini in his documentaries is fully oral history. When we talk about voice, the opposite pint is the text. For instance, someone in the Harvard project of Mr. Lajevardi has said the word “thing” and they have written the same word while if the speech comes in the form of a text, it must use the rules of writing. This is not trustworthiness. We face with the audiences who are going to study the texts later. If you see the book, you will find out that nothing has been lessened form its trustworthiness toward the field of oral history. Literary expressions are in monologue forms and this is completely documented and you see how the spaces are.
The method of oral history field is completely a qualitative research. We have two types of research; a quantitative research in which we are faced with figures and numbers, and the other is a qualitative research in which we are faced with human beings. We must penetrate the mental experiences of the individuals involved in the incident and were operant, and it is just through the questions of qualitative research field that we can the inner area of the individual and depict his or her feelings. For example, I wept with Mrs. Jazayeril who were among the last three persons released from Qasr Prison, or with Mrs. Rezvaneh Mirza Dabbagh who were tortured in prison for years and suffered many diseases, or with her mother, Mrs. Dabbagh who is called as the mother of revolution. After the passing of many years, Mrs. Rezvaneh Dabbagh could not speak yet. She did not allow anyone to interview her before me and I do not know why she agreed to have an interview with me. The narrator in some places expresses his or her feelings and the interviewer should accompany him or her. I really wept and did not pretend. I included the same narrations exactly and deleted the questions too, because the book of Ezatshahi memories by Mohsen Kazemi was among my first role models. After the release of oral history books, the dear professors in the field of oral history said that there should just the texts of questions and answers, while in this meeting, I told you in a documented way that the monologues are also considered as the voice and history and rewarded.”
In continuation, Tavakoli said, “The book “Atlas of Lasting Battles” ate the most complete documented and scientific book that I have ever seen in the area of war. The book consists of the full of information of all battles along with maps, images, defenses and offenses and since the operations have been carried by the army and Islamic revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) jointly, I propose the book in terms of being atlas and for the poetry and prose in the area of oral history of defense. But the context that we want to produce the book’s text in it is of great importance. For the Nobel of Literature, we can use the subject-oriented books from now. Oral history is subject-oriented and object-oriented. Our objects include different air and ground battles and the oral history of those who are the survivors of the war and the beloved ones who are alive can be registered and recorded completely. We can ask those who have strong literature and can deal with our subjects to write and there is no problem that such books are sent for the Noble of Literature. The reflection of our books overseas is very limited. The books written inside the country should be sent with strong English and Farsi literature for international institutions. My applicable proposal is in the field of the works and productions of oral history. We can also be influential in the form of literature. We still see new movies or books are produces about the world wars. A small memory is processes and a movie is produced. We have to send our oral history writings and productions to international communities, both the subjects and cases that we have worked as objects. As an example, I can mention the book of prison memories by Mr. Saeed Ghiasian in the form of objection. He has written part of the prison memories of thirty to forty persons. The work has its own charm but I was surprised why he has not explained about the struggles of these people. The book is a selection of the memories of the political prisoners and the tortures the prisoners tolerated at the time when they entered the prisons of the joint committee. We must publish it in a more complete form, but we do not witness the book’s next publication. Categorization is very important in the books. The author should present the biography of all of these people as postscript; where has this person was born and in what process has he been involved in the struggle and then after that how has he been imprisoned and tortured; but now he is just like a human who have gotten only his hand and left his head and body and legs."
Oral history and heroism
In continuation of the third session of the meeting " Live History: A Study of 40 Years of Oral History of the Islamic Revolution and the Holy Defense", Gholamreza Azizi said, "We have two types of oral history, one is individual-oriented and the other subject-oriented. In individual-oriented oral history, you read a book about my presence from birth to today; certainly, this person-oriented comes to your mind, because I am the speaker. The events and incidents are seen from the windows of my mind, but this is the same thing that has happened with no exaggeration. In heroism, you highlight the role of someone more than what it is. We do not do this in our oral history works. We do not come and say that martyr Hamedani had four characteristics and since I am writing his oral history, let's add six other ones to it. No, we do not do this and heroism does not happen, because our subject is an individual and work about this person from the beginning to the end. If you see the subject-oriented oral history projects, for instance the oral history of Abuzar Mosque in Tehran or the books like this, since the subject is several persons, you do not have the feeling of heroism and that someone is going to be promoted. This is not intentional in individual-oriented books too and heroism has not happened, because the core of the discussion and events is narrated from one's eyes. These are the cases that I have seen and you may have seen the contrary."
In continuation, regarding heroism about the martyrs, Azizi said, "This is way of expression which differs. When we are speaking about heroism, the discussion of the role of a character or as you said hero in history comes forward. Regarding the role of a character or hero in history, we relate all of the events of the country and the entire causes and factors associated with the arrival and occurrence of the events to the role of the character. We the Iranian are still doing this and when we are talking about Nader, we make a thousand legends. To me, this has not happened in oral history book of martyr Abbas Dowran and the entire war has not been subject to him. If this happens in a work, we say that we have made heroism; for instance, we did not say when Abbas Dowarn was martyred, the back of the system was broken. We can say that it has been exaggerated through writing such words. Let's set aside the issue of the martyrs. About our relatives and friends, we see that as soon as a person passes away, he or she is endeared. It means that we have an inner exaggeration toward our deceased ones and see his problems and defects no more and if there is any problem, God has given us the spirit to see just his or her excellences, sometimes, we exaggerate and add whatever good thinking we have to what we like.
We have governmental and formal historiography in every period which is the same formal reading of the history. Heroism has happened in all wars in the beginning and during the war, why? Because everybody had to take part. For example, in Constitutional period, women wrote letter to the men that if you were not competent, we would come to the battlefield. Now we don't know whether the women had really written the letters. We have needed a hero in all of the war events and revolution that I as the historian has not created oral history and there is a formal reading in in and it differs. I argue that when you are describing a hero, you have not made heroism. When you make heroism that you exaggerate about a person like Azizi."
In continuation, Faezeh Tavkoli said, "We have a discussion under the title "paradigm". In a meeting held in the Martyr Foundation about oral history, I presented the issue of paradigms which has been produced on the basis the martyrs' wills. I found out through analyzing the discourse of the texts and wills that their paradigm had been Imam Hossain (PBUH). Today, we are in a period that they accuse us and say that you do not differ with Daesh! In such a situation when martyr Hojaji was beheaded, we need to make him great and hero in order to prove that this person was an Iranian and that we are not Daesh and this was the Daesh terrorists who beheaded our martyr. The issue of interaction with the world is of great importance. Since the 1970s, when colonialism has been pushed out as direct hegemony, cultural colonialism is being discussed. In the 1970s, every dollar spent in the areas of culture and media is equivalent to a hundred dollars in the area of militarism. I tell you this according to the statistics. The spy agencies of the beneficiary countries have spent billions of dollars to destroy the Shia Muslims in the region and to set on fire the Middle East and this is a reality; today, you witness with what chaos we are facing in the region. Oral history should be a means for us to make heroism about the people who have clear actors in Syria and witnessed the country's occupation by Daesh and saw that they were going to approach our borders or other areas. I believe that oral history can be used as a cultural tool and in this direction."
Live History: A Study of 40 Years of Oral History of the Islamic Revolution and the Holy Defense – 5: An oral history interviewer should be professional
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